


Here We Go Again

by Littlebiscuits



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Cults, Immortality, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-21
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-09 19:53:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14722568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Littlebiscuits/pseuds/Littlebiscuits
Summary: Rook is starting to suspect he may be technically immortal.





	1. Chapter 1

It takes longer than Rook wants to admit to work out that something's not right. He's already crashed a few cars by that point, been shoved off a cliff, been savaged by a wolverine, and fallen through a few - several - hails of bullets. He's walked away every time, sometimes after dragging himself stiffly, groggily, off the floor first. He hadn't really questioned any of it at the time. Since there are usually a lot of things happening at once, all of which seem to require his immediate and focused attention. He'd just bandaged the worst of it, popped a few aspirin for the headache and headed for the next potential explosion.

It's only after a Peggie shoots him point blank with a rocket launcher, that he realises something a lot weirder is going on than a doomsday cult taking over an entire county.

He's afraid to test it, because even with what might be considered strong evidence it's still _insane_. Who would be crazy enough to test something like that. But it only takes a few more raids to a cultist outpost, a few bullet holes in his shirt that he doesn't quite recall being that bad, and one unexpected and very unpleasant mauling by a bear. Rook's not naturally clumsy, it's just that this is a pretty stressful situation, and he hasn't had a lot of time to slow down and really think about it. Getting Joseph Seed was always supposed to be dangerous, so there'd been a plan, to make sure everything went as smoothly as possible. Only nothing went smoothly, and now he has no plan, and things have pretty much been constantly on fire ever since.

Once it does slow down a little though...that's when Rook notices, and then can't stop noticing.

Rook is starting to suspect he may be technically immortal.

It takes a long time to sink in. It takes longer for him to even take the idea somewhat seriously.

Rook doesn't really consider himself religious. The whole God/no God/maybe God? equation has been mostly irrelevant to his life so far. But he figures if God was going to send someone on a divine mission to take down a delusional cult, it probably wouldn't be him. There must be a bunch of true believers around here that are just as good at shooting at things, and driving over things, and dropping from zip-lines in the perfect way to break a man's neck - probably not that last one, he spent an awful lot of time climbing things as a child. But the others, they're not exactly rare talents around here. The only other alternative is that he's just a freak of nature, that it's not even an Eden's Gate specific situation, though that was definitely the point where it became noticeable. Maybe he's always been immortal, he's just never come this close to dying before?

He guesses it's hard to notice you're immortal when you're not being constantly shot at.

Rook kind of wants to hash the idea out with someone, but he's worried they'll think he's crazy. There are an awful lot of crazy people in Hope County, and he'd rather not be put in the same category as them, if he can help it. 

"I don't think I can die," he says to the shape sat beside him. "I think I'm immortal."

The shape makes a rumbling noise that might be supportive, or a demand that Rook throw a ball. 

Boomer doesn't care that he's immortal. Rook scratches him behind the ears, and watches his leg kick in the dust.

"Yeah, you're a good boy."

~

After a taxing morning spent blowing up shrines, and rescuing people held by cultists at the side of the road - seriously how does that happen so frequently - Rook spends the evening being non-consensually baptised. It's a traumatic experience, that isn't made any better by the fact that he manages not to drown during it. No thanks to John Seed's unnecessary enthusiasm.

The man is certainly dangerously enthusiastic when it comes to his hobbies. 

Rook does not enjoy their introduction.

Joseph Seed is about an eight on the crazy scale. Just two points away from 'bag of cats,' since, scary as that man is, he can still fake normal if he tries really hard. Rook could do without the inappropriate touching, but all of the Seeds seem to think boundary issues are a problem for other people. Rook briefly worries that the man is going to sense something off about him. That he's going to know somehow about Rook's weirdness. But as far as he can tell he's treated almost exactly the same as the others.

His rescue isn't exactly a rousing success though. Rook is seventy-five percent sure that he dies in the crash, for the simple reason that everyone else does.

Still, Pastor Jerome looks really happy to see him, so maybe it's the thought that counts.

~

Eventually someone else was bound to notice.

"It can't be, I mean, it can't, right? People aren't - people aren't just immortal." Nick is still pacing at the back of the hanger, hat crooked. He keeps looking at Rook, in a vaguely pleading way, as if he wants him to protest, or tell him that it was all a joke. 

Rook is sympathetic, honestly he'd probably had the same conflicted, disbelieving face at the beginning. Immortality isn't something people should be able to just take in stride. Especially not when it was happening to you. Though Rook is taking the opportunity, while Nick is freaked out, to drink all his beer. It's only fair, he's been the one dying all over the valley after all. If he'd stayed dead they probably would have drank one for him anyway. It's beer that would have been drunk either way.

"That's just crazy," Nick continues. "That's like made up TV stuff. Comic book stuff. People are not immortal in real life, damn it."

"Pretty sure he is," Grace offers, from where she's perched on one of the toolboxes, feet kicked up. "I didn't believe it either, until I saw him fall off a radio tower." 

Which, as evidence goes, is pretty damning, those things are really fucking high.

"I think I was actually shot off the tower." Rook feels like he has to make that point. It had taken him ages to grapple up there, and he'd been annoyed about it when he woke up in the dirt. He hadn't even had time to rifle through the backpack and weapons crate he'd found up there. Or appreciate the view, check for zip-lines. He's getting far too attached to the zip-lines, sometimes he does it just for the hell of it. Even if he doesn't have to be anywhere it's going.

"People have survived shit like that though, right?" Nick says, pointing at Rook. "Freak chance, one in a million."

"He landed on his head," Grace says flatly.

Rook manages not to wince. Even though he hadn't really felt it, just a rush of air, and then soreness and a lot of complaining afterwards.

"And you saw him get shot in the head by that Peggie fuck."

"I thought I saw that." Nick rubs at his eyes under the glasses. "It was bright, I wasn't exactly -"

"You touched the goddamn bullet hole," Grace reminds him.

Rook pulls a face at him, because he hadn't heard that part, and he feels like that's the sort of thing he should probably call someone out for. People's dead bodies shouldn't be molested if they needed to use them again.

"I really thought that part was a hallucination," Nick finally says quietly. "See a lot of weird things if you stare into the sun for too long. A lot of things which turn out to be a trick of the light later."

"I've seen him get up enough times when he shouldn't have done." That seems to be the end of the matter for Grace.

Nick drops heavily into a chair. He's clearly having more trouble with the concept. He says nothing for a minute, just shaking his head slowly and cracking open his own beer, drinking a third of it, then half, before setting it down.

"So, are you on some sort of divine mission from God or something?" 

Rook pauses with his own beer halfway tilted up, carefully lowers it.

"I really hope not," he says slowly. Because he's thought about it more than a few times now, and that's a little too much pressure for him. He'd rather be a freak of nature, if he has any say in the matter.

"Probably best," Nick says, nodding. "Never really ends well for them does it. Plagues of things, pillars of salt and all that."

"So you just randomly can't die?" Grace doesn't sound quite as convinced.

"Grace, would you want to wake up one morning and find out you were on a divine mission from God, and an entire county was relying on you to prevent an apocalypse?"

Grace stares at him for a moment, before she sighs and picks up her own beer.

"Fuck no," she says finally, and finishes it in one pour.

Nick smacks Rook to get his attention.

"What does it feel like when you die - not die, the not dying part. When you go...wherever it is you go. Do you see stuff, bright lights and everything? Does anyone talk to you?"

Nick looks like he's bracing himself for something. Rook doesn't think he really wants to know the answers to any of those questions. 

He shakes his head.

"Nope, I don't see anything, half the time I don't even notice I've died. Sometimes I know that there's time missing where I'm fairly sure I was dead, or should have been dead." Rook sets his beer down. "It's not like I wake up healed. I'm still all bruised and grazed and bloody. But it's like anything that happens to me that's debilitating or permanent, just gets, I don't know, fixed."

"Have you always been like this?" Grace asks.

Rook opens his mouth, and then shuts it again, and really thinks about it. He remembers scraping up the skin on his knees and shins, losing a strip off his hand jumping into a river as a kid. But he doesn't remember busting an arm or a leg, doesn't remember anything that actually _broke_ him. He honestly doesn't know the answer to that question. 

He shrugs.

"I don't think so. Probably not. I mean I would have noticed before now, right? That's the sort of thing you'd notice? I think it's just since I came to arrest Joseph." 

There it is again, that unpleasant connection to Joseph Seed that he keeps rubbing up against.

"People are shooting at you on a daily basis now," Nick agrees. "That's a lot of potential to be hitting the dirt. You've been making friends all over the map."

"The kind of friends that shoot at you, I'm not so fond of," Grace says firmly.

"If we refused to talk to everyone that took a shot at us we'd have -" Nick catches Kim looking at him from across the room. "Probably one less friend, or two, no more than three."

~

Rook has never been as popular as he is right now. There are posters of him, though he has no idea how or when anyone took that stupid picture of him. He looks like the world's worst outdoors wear model. He's going to chalk it up to Eden's Gate's creepy ability to know everything that goes on in the region. Almost everything, he's pretty sure he's killed all the Peggies who've seen him die at this point. He's not looking forward to what happens when they find out they have to try extra hard to get him to stay dead.

Even the thought of it is more than a little unsettling.

It seems safe to assume that Dutch has seen him die, though he hasn't mentioned it in any of his terse messages. Maybe he doesn't think it's important. Maybe he just figures it was a drunk hallucination? Or maybe the grouchy old bastard has gotten to the stage where nothing surprises him any more. Hell, Rook's a few decades younger than him and he's close to hitting that stage himself.

That's what getting your throat ripped out by a bear for the _second_ time will do for you.

~

Rook's second meeting with John Seed goes even worse than the first. 

Though there's less potential to be drowned, there is instead the threat of immediate physical violence. He also can't help but notice the restraints, the uncomfortable boundary issues, and then the personal stories with more than a hint of underlying sexual frustration. Cult membership doesn't seem to be working out all that well for the sadomasochist with poor impulse control. Huh, who could have ever guessed.

Rook is not loving the selection of tools strewn across the table. Since torture is, after all, a focused and determined effort to make sure someone _doesn't_ die. And Rook's powers do not extend to being able to tear himself out of very competently tied restraints. 

John turns around very briefly, slips something off the table and then comes close.

In far too little time, there's a screwdriver point settled at the meat of Rook's waist, sharp edge turning slowly against the cotton of his shirt, bunching the fabric back and forth. Rook can see the length of the thing, and all his stomach muscles pull in at the thought of it.

John feels it, he feels that crawling tension and smiles.

"The whispers I've heard about you. The things you've made people believe." John shakes his head like Rook is a child who's disappointed him.

Rook can't think of anything to say that's going to make John not do what he's about to do. He's pretty sure he's going to do it anyway no matter what.

He takes a breath and he waits.

John sees it, and shrugs, like it makes no difference to him.

"But lies are easily disproved by the truth." The metal stops turning. John's hand tightens until the metal digs in, and then he _pushes_ , slowly, because he's a fucking asshole. The world goes all bright colours of pain, once John is through that second of resistance. Rook makes a noise, loud and deeply unhappy, catching when his lungs are empty. 

Before he's breathing clear again, and the screwdriver is right in front of him, slick red almost to the hilt. Rook can't quite remember how to act like he's horribly wounded. He leans into the memory of an ache and tries his best.

John smiles at him, like this is his favourite part of the day. Which, considering how their interactions have gone so far, it just might be. Rook is not happy to be a participant.

Unfortunately John is the kind of man who likes to get his hands on other people's weaknesses. He tugs Rook's shirt out of his pants, draws it up, and Rook doesn't need to look down to know that the skin is bloody but whole again. Debilitating wounds never stay. John presses his hand there, finds nothing but blood, and falters.

He ends up staring between Rook and the bloody screwdriver with a sort of confused bewilderment, and that shouldn't be funny in such a fucked up situation, but it sort of is. 

"You...I stabbed you." John doesn't sound certain. You'd think John Seed would be a man who'd remember a thing like that. "No, no, no that's not possible." 

John makes a noise, uncertain, and then determined, and the screwdriver angles upwards.

"Don't," Rook says, instinctively, because he'd rather not get stabbed in the chest, immortality or not.

John gets a grip on his hair and pulls his head back, so Rook has no choice but to look him in the face.

"Why? Because you'll survive it? Because you'll bleed but you won't die. That's what they say. I don't know how you managed to make them believe that, I punished them. I punished all of them for their lies. Because how could that possibly be true. Hmm?"

Rook's eyes flick to Hudson, still tied up on the other side of the room.

"Answer me, or I'll put this through her hand and then ask again," John says quietly. 

"Yes," Rook says, because what else is he supposed to say?

John nods for him to continue.

"Yes?" he prompts.

"I'll survive," Rook says flatly. Because it's the truth.

John stares down at him, expression conflicted and angry. It's the look of someone who's been explicitly told not to kill someone. But Rook gets the impression that Joseph's probably very firm command is now butting up against John's own personal flavour of crazy. Which seems to take an issue with Rook's refusal to bleed for him.

Rook is honestly not sure which one's going to win.

Until John smiles a wide and slightly terrifying smile

"Let's both take a leap of faith."

The screwdriver moves very fast, and life is very painful for a second - before it's not.

When the world swims into focus, he has John's Seed's hand pressed to the side of his face, warm and unpleasant, eyes watching him from far too close, he's breathing very deeply. He looks caught somewhere between fascination and awe. It's a disturbing combination. He has good eyes, very blue, Rook would have said they were his best feature, if he wasn't a raving psychotic.

"It is true," John says thickly, and Rook can feel the smear of his own blood when his fingers move. "You can't die, you can't die, you _can't fucking die_." John laughs and then abruptly stops laughing, shakes his head and leans uncomfortably close. "My men said you were special, said you couldn't be killed." John exhales, the screwdriver hits the floor next to the chair, rolls away, and now both hands are on Rook's face, tight and faintly tacky. "But how could that possibly be true? Who could blame me for not believing."

Rook catches a look at Hudson's face behind John's shoulder, and her eyes are wide behind smeared make-up. The rattled stillness of grief turning into confused disbelief. 

"But now I do." John sinks to the floor before Rook's chair, as if to share secrets. "Now I have seen it with my own eyes. I should have known better." John breathes another laugh that seems more delight than amusement. 

Rook thinks he may have broken him.

"What does it feel like? What does it feel like to be reborn over and over? To be _Chosen_?" John asks. It's almost a whisper, and the rehearsed salesman is completely gone from his voice. Now it just sounds throaty and desperate. "What are you here for? Did He send you? Did you come to join us? Did you come for Joseph? Did you come for me?" 

"No," Rook says simply, to all of those questions. 

John shakes his head, a flat refusal to accept that answer. Rook suspects he's just making up his own at this point. John crowds in close, presses his forehead against Rook's, and much as Rook would like to push him away he's still tied to a chair.

"Am I the one who's supposed to show you the way? Now you've died at my hand. What else am I supposed to show you? What else am I supposed to do?" John seems to be talking to himself now. 

He moves Rook's shirt out of the way, staring at the line of red that's now the only proof he killed him. He lays his clean hand there, and it's warm and uncomfortably familiar, faintly sweaty. 

"You could hold everyone's sins, could bear them all and come through whole," John says breathlessly, and he smiles up at him.

"Uh," Rook says uncertainly. Because he thinks this is going somewhere strange and unsettling, and he's the one that just got stabbed in the heart.

But John seems to get something else entirely from Rook's quiet noise of discomfort. He turns his head back over his shoulder.

"You're right. This isn't a moment for witnesses." John stands, shoes grating on the floor, he moves over to Hudson, and grips the back of her chair. 

For her part Hudson still looks like she has no idea how to react to any of this. Rook can't blame her, he's been winging it so far, if he's honest.

"I'll be back," John promises him, something delirious in his smile, and Rook knows he's probably not going to like anything that happens when John gets back. Whether it involves sharp implements or not, he's not going to like it.

The moment the door shuts behind him, Rook starts awkwardly moving. He doesn't want to leave Hudson, really, he doesn't. But at this point it seems prudent to get the fuck out of here. He slides his chair backwards until he finds the stairs, and takes a painful dive all the way down them. He can't tell if it kills him, but he ends up winded and aching at the bottom. 

He finds a Peggie.

Takes the Peggie's gun.

And with that Rook escapes from the crazy man, and back into the - it turns out - extraordinarily dangerous wilds of Montana.


	2. Chapter 2

Rook decides to head North for a bit. If only to escape John Seed's unsettling and persistent radio calls. They start off surprisingly calm and rational, but gradually get more desperate and unhinged the further out of range Rook gets, sometimes alternating between pleading and threatening in the same call. Abandonment issues, Rook makes a mental note.

Nick has taken to referring to the man as Rook's jilted ex. Rook does not find it amusing, at all. 

But going North, into the Whitetail Mountains, brings with it a whole host of new and different problems.

Chief among them is Jacob Seed. Jacob's brand of hospitality turns out to be just as painful as John's. But it's also focused, organised, and fucking armoured. Oh, and it comes with free wolves, giant, mutated, crazy wolves, and thus being unexpectedly mauled to death officially becomes Rook's least favourite way to die.

He does make new friends though, one of which is a bear, which is something.

~

"So what happens if you get eaten by wolves?" Hurk wants to know. "Are you still immortal then? Do you, like, regrow into another you if they shit you out."

"I'm fucking _eating_ ," Grace says pointedly, then gives in and drops her sandwich. "Asshole."

Rook's already finished his sandwich. He's not sure whether to be glad of that or not. 

"I've never been eaten by wolves," he admits, though now he's _thinking_ about being eaten by wolves. Which makes him deeply unhappy. "And that's something I'm pretty sure I never even considered as a possibility, so thank you for that." 

Hurk has had less of a problem with Rook's immortality than anyone else so far. He'd just accepted it, before Rook even managed to fall off of anything, or get shot in the head. Which was nice, because Rook feels like he's died a lot to prove a point so far. Rook learned very quickly that Hurk has a lot of thoughts. He likes to follow those thoughts to strange places, and he takes anyone around him along for the ride. Things also tend to explode around him with surprising regularity. But it's always nice for Rook to be a bystander to the explosions, rather than the epicentre of them.

"I'm just saying, when you start to think about it, it gets more complicated, and kind of gross. What are the rules, like, how many pieces can you get cut into, and which piece grows back into you? Can you get your head cut off? Can you get burned up until there's just a skeleton left? I can't believe you haven't thought about this, I would think about that all the time. Oh, if you get buried underground -"

Nick, thankfully, doesn't let him continue that thought.

"I hear John Seed hasn't left his ranch since you fled the valley in the middle of the night."

"I didn't flee in the middle of the night," Rook protests grumpily. It was a carefully considered retreat out of John Seed's territory. It may have happened at night but it wasn't an 'under cover of darkness' kind of thing. Rook still feels guilty about leaving Hudson there, nothing that's happened so far has been her fault, and she's already seen him die once. Rook hadn't even stuck around for an explanation. Though John Seed has promised to leave her unharmed for the time being. Some sort of peace offering to get him to come back willingly. Rook thinks Hudson would probably find that insulting.

"Everyone knows he was making you uncomfortable," Nick says, which is something of an understatement.

"He was making _everyone_ uncomfortable," Grace mutters.

"With his weird new quasi-sexual attachment to your invulnerable, unflayable skin," Hurk adds, with a lot of unnecessary stress.

That is not something Rook wants to think about too hard. Being immortal is a lot harder than it sounds, people become far too interested in either proving you wrong, or becoming obsessed with your skin. Why are no normal, non-crazy, attractive people ever this interested in him? Also, unflayable is not a word.

"Unflayable is not a word," Rook says, and has to wonder why he decided that was the most important part of that thought.

"Yep, it is," Grace decides. "Unflayable, cannot be flayed." 

"Right, unflayable," Hurk agrees, stupidly pleased by Grace's support. 

"You gotta admit, Hurk has a point." Nick looks sympathetic at least. "The man wants you back, bad, because he can cut into you to his heart's content. You're like sadist catnip."

"The next person that describes me as catnip, gets a free ride-along to clear the sewage treatment plant," Rook says firmly. And he's not going to rush to rescue them if they fall in anything. He'll pretend to be dead if necessary, and he can do that. That is a thing he can do.

There are apparently no takers for that one.

"I'm surprised John hasn't told everyone already. I mean the Peggie's are starting to whisper about you, but most people think it's bullshit, one of those build a hero up until they become larger than life things." Grace hasn't picked up her sandwich again, she's actively pushed it away now. 

Hurk encourages her to push it in his direction. She glares, but relinquishes the sandwich.

"Has to happen eventually thought right," Hurk says, from across the table. "I mean, fuck, when Joseph Seed finds out you're immortal it's going to crank his already crazy ass up to eleven. He's probably going to decide you're the second coming and send everyone he has to come and get you, in the middle of the night. And then he'll keep you tied up with him in a bunker somewhere. Where there'll be, like, sermons written especially about you, with nudity and non-consensual touching. Probably also a little weeping, and maybe some weird, religious-themed fetish stuff. Someone's probably going to get whipped, not necessarily you, I'm just saying. Either that or he's going to move heaven and earth to fucking destroy you, and everything around you, for being an abomination in the eyes of God."

Hurk drinks his beer, while everyone else just looks at him. 

"What the fuck, Hurk?" Nick says quietly.

Rook honestly doesn't know what to say to that. He thinks he preferred it when he was catnip.

"Yeah, I don't like either of those options," he says slowly. "Is there a third option, something that doesn't involve me being a fetish object for religious lunatics?" Rook would really like another beer to scour this whole conversation from his brain, but he has to drive all afternoon, and it fucks with his coordination. This is Hope County, there's always something in the middle of the damn road. 

"You should have just stayed in Holland Valley," Grace tells him.

Nick agrees with a noise.

"At least John wasn't sending giant, mutant death wolves after you."

"Yeah, but I'm pretty sure he stabbed me in the heart with a screwdriver...at least once," Rook reminds everyone, because that was a thing that happened. He doesn't want to be around people that think that's ok. Even if in his very specific case, it is kind of a non-permanent thing. 

"I bet he stabs everyone he likes," Nick points out, not helpfully. "He seems the type. One of my ex girlfriends stabbed me with a fork once, though I kind of deserved it."

"Not the same, and could we stop connecting my unpleasant experience with a cult torturer to your past relationship troubles please." 

"Right," Hurk agrees. "Everyone knows you're not supposed to stick your dick in crazy. I mean, I'm assuming that still applies when you're a dude, and it's also a dude who's crazy. I'm not judging, it works either way. Mind you, that saying exists for a reason, it's like something that shouldn't need saying, but sometimes, sometimes crazy is really fucking hot."

"Take his goddamn beer away," Grace decides.

~

One of the upsides of immortality, it turns out that dying breaks whatever conditioning Jacob had put him through. It resets Rook's brain back to default settings somehow. So it obviously considers brainwashing either debilitating, or permanent. Which tells Rook he hadn't actually died when Jacob abandoned him the first time, the bastard had planned it all along. Which, for some reason, Rook is more pissed about than any of the attempts on his life.

Having his brain back under his control is literally the only bright side to Rook's day, most of which is spent dragging himself through the mountains in search of an ATV, that the nice citizens of this county tend to leave scattered around like vehicular fucking candy. God knows why. But at least he's safe from any Manchurian Candidate episodes until Jacob grabs him again.

Unfortunately Jacob seems to take Rook's continued existence as a personal slight, and for the next few weeks he's all that Rook hears on every radio in range. Droning on and on about the weak, and culling the herd. Rook's fairly sure that strong people shouldn't need this much attention. And also, Rook has been culled, repeatedly, and he's still destroying stuff all over the mountains. He likes to think that sends a message.

He's trying to sleep on the roof of a disused aircraft hanger, when the radio beside him chirps to life.

"I knew something was off about you," it says, soft like Jacob is five feet away. 

Boomer growls at it, until Rook pets him still. 

"People who aren't exceptional don't keep getting up like you do, over and over. They don't survive the things you do. People get beaten down, people break, piece by piece until there's nothing left to fight with. I thought that was you. I thought you just had an extraordinary will to survive."

There's a rush of breathing, a steadying, before Jacob continues.

"But I know now, I've seen enough, I've heard enough. You think you're safe. You think God has made you indestructible. No man is indestructible. Everything dies."

The radio crackles, like someone squeezed the handset too hard.

"I will kill the unkillable," Jacob promises.

Rook frowns at the radio.

This could be a problem.

~

"How do you put a hit out on someone who can't be killed?" Grace wonders.

Rook has been thinking about that himself. No answer he's come up with has been comforting.

"I feel like that fucker is just banking on persistence getting the job done," Nick says after a beat. 

"Great, then I get to enjoy being killed over and over until something sticks." Probably in more inventive and efficient ways, going by what he's discovered about Jacob Seed so far. Rook doesn't want anyone to start putting actual effort into making sure he stays dead.

Nick jabs a finger into the table.

"So you get in there, and you burn his ass first."

Hurk nods. "Yes, that's the best idea. Stick dynamite in his munitions he's not gonna have an ass to worry about."

"I'm not good with dynamite," Rook admits. "I always hit something, get a bounce-back."

"We know," Grace says thinly.

"That is a thing we have noticed," Nick agrees. 

"And it would be significantly less amusing and much more tragic if it was a permanent kind of thing for you, if you know what I'm saying," Hurk adds. 

Rook does, unfortunately, he feels like his friends have become blasé about his immortality. Which is a thought no sane person should really be forced to have. Is he still a sane person? Jesus, he doesn't even know any more.

Hurk is clearly still thinking about it.

"Sometimes I feel like I'm a bad person for laughing, but then I'm remember you're going to be back up again in a few minutes, like five minutes tops."

Rook is forced to imagine all the times he's made his friends just wait around, while he comes back to life again. He wonders if they watch it happen, or just sort of stand around talking about nothing much, politely avoiding looking at him, while his bones snap back together. If it was anyone else, Rook's pretty sure he would watch.

"Hurk, stop feeding that bear fucking hotdogs, they're not good for him."

"Aw, Grace, look how happy he is."

"The bear is not immortal, Hurk, cut it out."

Cheeseburger manages to look upset at getting his snacks cut off, in a way that no five hundred pound death machine should.

"I'll catch you a salmon tomorrow," Rook promises and scratches his big, stupid head.

"Just watch out for assassination attempts," Nick says, because apparently that's a thing Rook does now.

~

It's not an assassination attempt, but it does involve a lot of shouting, and a fair amount of shooting. Most of which is directed at Rook.

Rook has a fishing rod, and he figures only the very best would be able to turn that into a deadly projectile weapon. He makes a go of it though, and he feels like he acquits himself pretty well. There is definitely at least one Peggie tangled up in fishing line somewhere near the water's edge. Or possibly in it. Screw it, he's going to consider that a victory.

But he still ends up watching the ground blur in and out, while someone drags him along it.

It's uncomfortable for a long stretch, and Rook can't make his limbs move, but he's definitely alive.

It's weird how being dead hurts less than this.

...

He wakes up, or rather wakes up _more_ tied to a chair in a barred room.

The first person to come into focus is Jacob Seed, closely followed by Deputy Pratt, and then a tall scruffy, hairy shape somewhere to the left who probably isn't important.

"Now we'll see how strong you really are," Jacob says darkly.

Rook has gotten pretty good at being broken. He's been immortal for about two months now, and there are mad cultists toting heavy weapons in every other building, also bears, cougars, wolves and wolverines. He's learned how to hate wolverines like no other animal on earth. But he thinks this is going to hurt, and it's going to go on for a long time. Rook takes a breath, and then another, because he doesn't know how many he's going to get.

There was a tree when he was a child, old and mangled like it had some sort of disease, and it grew in all directions. Rook would clamber up into the prickly branches and stare out at the landscape, miles and miles of it, mountains in the distance. When he looked down, the ground was so far away, blurry and inviting through the leaves.

There was always the stray thought that if he jumped the fall would be longer than the stop. What would happen if you could jump and never hit the ground, just keep swooping and swooping. He doesn't remember ever falling out of it, skidding down it a few times, shins torn to weeping on the bark. But he never jumped, and he never fell out.

Looking back on it, Rook kind of wishes he'd jumped, just once.

Because then at least he would have known for sure whether he's always been unbreakable. Or whether his stubborn resistance to die has a _purpose_.

Rook's breathing, and that's how he knows he's alive, some unknown amount of time later. A long time maybe, because the room has a weight that it didn't before. He feels like someone ran him over. Jacob is no longer in front of him. Instead he's sitting a good dozen feet away, on a chair, curved over, arms balanced on his knees.

He looks tired and hollowed out, fury burnt away by something else.

The cell door is gaping open, and the inside smells like burnt meat and death.

Rook forces himself to focus. It seems harder than usual, but he gets there, slowly, sluggishly.

"I thought I was prepared for anything," Jacob says quietly, voice rough and slow. "I was prepared for _everything_. But even with everything Joseph said was true, I didn't expect you. I didn't plan for -" He stops and gives Rook a look that's _haunted_. There's a spatter of blood across his left cheek that looks long dried. "A man shouldn't survive things like that."

Rook blinks at him groggily from the chair. He thinks about telling Jacob he doesn't really remember most of what happens before or after he dies. Permanent and debilitating seems to include memories as well. It's all been a blur since Jacob put him in this room. He feels bruised and a little shaky, like someone wasn't all that gentle putting him back together again. But it's no worse than some of the days he's had lately. When he's been too close to an explosion, or when he's come down in a plane, and woken slumped in the wreckage, covered in soot and charred clothing. It's like a part of him still remembers how to be raw and open. 

But if Rook's being honest, the Whitetail Mountains have taught him to be more afraid of a fucking song than anything that happens to the skin and bones of him. What was the point of immortality if your mind was no longer yours? 

Jacob leans forward in his chair, makes it creak, dragging Rook's attention back to him.

"I was never sure whether Joseph - whether God really did speak to him. I didn't care, he was my brother, and he needed me, if he believed that was good enough for me. But you - you are something that demands belief, that demands it of me, until my hands are red and stiff with your blood, and it will not be denied."

Jacob stops and breathes harshly for a long, silent minute.

"Whatever you are," Jacob eventually says hoarsely. "Whoever sent you here. I'm not strong enough to end you. It doesn't feel right, like I'm breaking some rule, like you're just _meant to be_. That the universe will just let you continue, until you do whatever it is you came to do. The harder I try to break you." Jacob stops and stares down at his hands, fingers dark and still half wet in the low light. "The harder I try, the harder it gets."

One of the Peggies cuts Rook free, and he seems afraid to touch him. Wide eyes locked on his face over a wilder beard, searching for something.

"Maybe you're my punishment," Jacob murmurs, almost too low to hear.

Rook wobbles once he's out of the chair, undamaged or not, he's probably not winning any fights at the moment. Still, he's ready to have one, if need be.

"So, go, do whatever it is you've been put here to do," Jacob says simply. "Leave, and take your man with you."

Rook swallows and swallows, trying to unstick his throat. He's uncertain if Jacob means what he says, if it's that easy, after everything.

Deputy Pratt is pushed gently in his direction, Rook has an arm out before he realises it, catches thin limbs under a stained uniform. Pratt smells like he's been living in a dog kennel, and he looks like someone kicked him in the face, repeatedly. Rook has to wonder, absently, what his own face looks like right now. 

Rook blinks stupidly down at him, still unsure whether he can really walk away, or whether someone is going to tell him it's a lie, that he doesn't get to leave. 

But no one does. 

So Rook leaves, mostly holding Pratt up, finding the stairs up and out. Rook's legs are still trembling, but they don't give out on him. Peggies stare silently at them from doorways as they pass. It's more than a touch unsettling, and Rook has been dying on and off for a while now.

"God sent you," Pratt says quietly beside him, which is still too loud through the almost deserted tunnels of the bunker. The tone of his voice wavers strangely, and Rook has to wonder if he watched it all. If Jacob made him stay and watch Rook prove his immortality, over and over again. Rook thinks Pratt might have seen a little too much. "He sent you, and he wouldn't let you die, and he didn't want me to die, and now you can save everyone."

"God didn't send me," Rook insists. Probably not anyway.

Pratt's praying now, a confused jumble of familiar and unfamiliar pleas. Rook thinks he hears his name in there more than once, and that's _deeply_ disturbing. 

"Don't do that," Rook tells him.

Pratt doesn't stop, he just does it more quietly.


	3. Chapter 3

Rook has decided to make the pumpkin farm his secret, temporary home base. It's strategic, easy to get to, easy to see from the air, and it comes with free pumpkins. But, if Rook's being honest, he just likes the place, and so does Boomer. He thinks he's due a moment of peace, considering everything that's happened to him so far. He'd apparently been Jacob's guest for a few weeks, a long bloody stretch of time that seems to have been much longer and harder on all of his friends than him. Rook doesn't have a single scar to show for it. Part of him feels weird about that, as if he's cheated somehow. But everyone around him seems to need him to just stop dying for a few days, which is fine with him. Rook figures it's the least he could do. He owes them all that much. 

So, Rook spends a couple of days just hanging out. The roadside kidnappings seem to have tailed off dramatically, and no one seems to have anywhere better to be. There's even a barbecue, which manages to miraculously not explode, in the way that Rook thinks he's been conditioned to expect. It's kind of a nice change.

Though it turns out that the pumpkin farm wasn't as secret a base as he'd been hoping. 

"I think it's safe to say that word got out from Jacob's bunker," Nick says slowly, from where he's crouched down in front of the tree behind the house.

"In hindsight," Grace drawls. "We should probably have expected this."

Someone has left...something at the back of the farm. It's a crudely carved wooden figure, made in a hurry, with stiff little wooden arms that have been dyed at the ends, in a way which Rook thinks is supposed to suggest gloves. The hair is drawn on, badly, and it has a little heart coloured in red, with little wiggly lines coming out of it, like it's supposed to be beating furiously. It's tied to a tree with bits of red thread.

Rook thinks it's supposed to be him, and it's very, very creepy. 

"I don't look like that, do I?" he asks.

"So, you started a cult to take on a cult," Nick manages to make that sound like something Rook would do, which is unfair. That is absolutely not something Rook would have done on purpose, even if he'd thought that he could. No one would do that on purpose. Ok, no one who didn't go by _Seed_ would do that on purpose.

"I didn't start a cult," Rook protests. But he realises that both Nick and Grace are looking at him in a way that is definitely accusing him of starting a cult. Which is deeply annoying, because this is pretty much the opposite of everything he wanted. "This isn't my fault."

"Oh, this is definitely your fault," Grace mutters. "But not on purpose, I guess."

Rook's not sure whether that absolves him or not.

"Yeah," Nick adds. "I suppose, when you think about it, you have been obviously coming back to life on a regular basis for a while now. It was only a matter of time before the crazy religious people started getting ideas." He pokes the little man so it spins and jolts around, little wooden arms turning in the breeze. Rook grabs his arm to make him stop doing it. 

"I don't want a cult," Rook tells them all, in case there was any doubt about that.

"I don't think you can give a cult back," Nick says. "I don't think that's how it works. I think it's your cult now, whether you want it or not."

"I don't want a cult," Rook says again, but no one seems to be listening.

Rook has terrible friends. He may have said he has terrible friends before, but this time he really means it. Not least because they keep showing up at all hours of the day or night, drinking his beer and having opinions on his messed-up life.

"What would Dep's cult be like do you think?" Sharky asks. He has his feet up on the table. Of course, he also has his flamethrower on the table, so Rook's probably already missed the point where he could complain. They've already had the 'pants must be worn at the home base at all times' conversation at least twice.

"Free beer," Nick says immediately. He doesn't even have to think about it. Rook suspects this is revenge for the beer theivery that started their whole friendship.

"Nothing wrong with that, man's an affectionate drunk, likes to pass out in entertaining places." Hurk knows this from personal experience, that Rook wishes he wouldn't keep freely sharing with everybody.

"To be fair his liver is probably now indestructible as well," Sharky points out. "So you might want to rethink any attempts to keep up with him."

"Anti-wolverine," Grace says firmly.

"He does fucking hate wolverines," Nick agrees.

"And yet he always manages to be wolverine-adjacent," Grace adds.

Rook gives her a look, to which she shrugs. Rook's pretty sure he's saved at least one person at this table with his own terrible wolverine mauling.

"I don't know why any of you are my friends," he tells them. Which doesn't seem to faze any of them at all.

"Someone else to handle the explosive ordnance," Hurk butts in. "That is a thing which needs to happen."

"Christ, yes, I've seen the man blow himself up more times than I can count." Grace steals another beer. "He should delegate more."

"Right, he always likes to be first anywhere, won't let anyone else take point, always running into fucking tripwires and traps and shit."

A strange silence settles, awkward and obvious at the table. Rook thinks everyone is mentally reliving some of his greatest death moments, and it seems to occur to them all at once how that might be a little macabre and disturbing. Rook thinks it serves them all right.

"So, how's Pratt?" he asks, when he thinks the silence has gone on long enough.

"Pastor's looking after him. He keeps muttering about how Jacob 'pulled everything out of you,' and then laughing." Sharky sets his bottle down and pulls a face at it. "Gotta be honest, it was starting to freak me the fuck out," he admits. 

"No fucking shit." Nick says slowly. "I wasn't even there, and it freaks me the fuck out just knowing it happened." He winces in Rook's direction, then looks guilty about it, like he might have reminded Rook of a recently traumatic experience.

Rook just shrugs.

"If it helps, I still don't remember almost any of it," he says slowly. He doesn't want to think about it too much, even though he honestly doesn't remember any of the gruesome parts. He's not sure he even technically 'lived' through them. Pratt's the only one Rook gives a shit about that had to watch the whole thing, and he clearly wishes he hadn't.

"I think Jacob broke him a little bit before all that shit went down," Sharky says. "Don't think he fed him much, kept him in with the dogs by the smell of it."

"Brainwashed the shit out of him," Grace says, not unsympathetically.

"What did we say about not using the B word!" 

Grace eyes Sharky sideways. "Doesn't mean it didn't happen."

"I think someone should maybe keep an eye on him," Rook suggests. Because he can still remember the way Pratt had twitched gently in his grip, like he was trying to stop himself from falling off of something. "Just to be sure."

"Before he starts his own cult, you mean?" 

"Wouldn't he join the one Rook already started?" Hurk points out.

"I didn't start a cult, I haven't -" Rook stops talking and rubs at his eyes, sighs loudly. Because he wishes everyone else found this at least as upsetting as he did. "Two cults is already too many," he says finally. "So lets just...make sure he's ok."

"So, just to be clear, we're _not_ joining Rook's cult?" Hurk asks, he sounds confused. "Because I was totally down with the free beer."

"If you were immortal too, I might actually shoot you right now," Rook admits.

"And I would let you." Hurk smacks his shoulder, and that should not make Rook feel kind of awkwardly and stupidly touched. "I would let all of you shoot me, because you are awesome dudes."

Rook watches _feelings_ make their way around the table. Ok, so maybe his friends aren't that shitty after all.

"Grace would have to go last though, because she's the only one I know for certain could kill me stone dead every time."

"You know I would," Grace affirms, but she sounds weirdly flattered as well.

~

Rook thinks about it for a while, but in the end he realises it's an easier decision for him than for anyone else. He finds the radio and takes it to the roof, which seems as good a place as any to make a deal with the devil. One he doesn't particularly want any witnesses to.

"Hey, John, you there?" 

He's going to give John twenty minutes to get back to him. If he doesn't get a reply, he's going to consider it the universe's way of telling him that it's a stupid idea, that they'll get Hudson back another way. It wouldn't be the first time they've -

" _Deputy._ "

Rook blinks, ok, that was considerably faster than he was expecting. Which brings up a disturbing mental image of John sat by the radio, just waiting for him to call. 

" _I knew you would come back eventually. I knew that if I was patient, if I waited, that you would return on your own. I have been patient, and I have been rewarded._ "

Rook sighs. He's remembering all at once why this was probably a terrible idea.

"Let Hudson go, and I will come to you and confess," he says quietly

There's a long, slow exhale from the other end of the radio, the faint creak of a chair.

" _I knew it, I knew you would say yes. You're meant to be here after all, to help us atone, to show us the true meaning of sacrifice. There were so many things I wanted to tell you, before you chose to **leave** me. So many things I wanted you to experience, to feel in a way that no one else could. I wanted to share them with you, and I wanted you to share them with me -_ "

God, why can't you interrupt someone on a radio. Why does the technology deny you a way to make the other person stop talking.

" _\- How long before the words fade away? How long can you see them for? If I carve them away will they wipe themselves clean? I have so many questions. We can watch you atone together, I'll help you, and you can help me. You can show me._ "

John stops talking, and for a second Rook almost misses it, fumbles for the handset.

"Right, yes, -" He's not going to back out, he's made his decision. "- all of that, so just me and no one else, in a controlled environment, an equal number of men on both sides. Nowhere near your creepy bunker of torture."

" _Done_ ," John says. He doesn't even take a moment to think about it. Like he's not interested in anyone else. His voice is louder now, as if he's leaning into the radio. " _Somewhere along the river, where we can wash everything away_."

The river seems thematically appropriate, in a creepy sort of way. Rook has to wonder if he's going to actually be drowned this time. That might be a first time for him, weird as that might sound.

"Sure, the river, I'll get in touch with you when I manage to round up some people," Rook tells him. 

" _I have so much I need to give you_ ," John says. " _So much that I need you to take from me_."

"I'm going now," Rook says down the radio, in the vain hope that John will stop talking, that he will, at the very least, stop sounding so fucking excited. As if Rook is a present he can't wait to get open. 

Rook sets the whole radio down, and then scowls at it. As if he isn't the one to blame for that whole uncomfortable conversation.

He'd had that all planned out. He'd intended a sort of sacrificial exchange of hostages there. He'd figured an agreement to a confession, and bit of mild torture - which he's hoping his body will mostly let him cruise past - would win Hudson's freedom. Everyone could go home happy, no one had to die. Heroic stuff.

Instead -

Instead he feels like he's just agreed to the world's worst fucking date.

~

Rook goes out on patrol, because he honestly can't decide what else to do, and it seems fair to be the one dying for Hope County when he's the only one that can and still complain about it afterwards. He takes Boomer, and Cheeseburger, because he's not in the mood for conversation.

He doesn't find a single soul needing assistance at the side of the road, which makes a nice change, because that's all he's been seeing for months now. He wanders into the woods anyway, maybe he'll find some cult property to destroy?

After skirting the river for a mile or so, he's rewarded with the jagged outline of a shrine ahead. He makes for it. But the closer he gets the more he sees that the shrine looks messy and hastily constructed. There's no familiar tank of Bliss leaking everywhere. He's a second away from tossing a grenade at it when he realises it doesn't have the Eden's Gate symbol on it either. Instead there's what looks like the weird outline of a deputy's badge, and then underneath it a drawing of the same little man, dyed hands, beating heart.

"Seriously?" Rook complains, loudly enough that Boomer gives a questioning little whine.

Rook tosses the grenade at it anyway, though watching it blow up isn't as satisfying as he'd hoped it was going to be.

"And stop nailing people to things," he tells the wilderness at large. Just in case anyone's listening.

He follows the river, resigned to blowing up both Eden's Gate property and anything resembling cult paraphernalia connected to him. He hopes to God his cult doesn't have a name yet. He gets the feeling it will be a stupid name, and then he'll never hear the end of it. 

He's just about decided he has a handle on the morning, when the surface of the river starts looking fluffy and expansive, and everything around him takes on smeared-out, sparkly edges.

"Fuck," he says, with feeling. Just before he gets pulled under.

~

Rook doesn't entirely understand the shuddery, half-misty world of the Bliss. But it's not the kind of place you can orient yourself, nothing feels real there. It could be an alternate dimension of what-the-fuck for all Rook knows. He can't help but wonder what Faith sees when she gets people this high, or if everything just looks normal to her. If she's dancing around playing with imaginary butterflies for other people's benefit. And that thought is funnier than it should be, and not just because he's been drugged.

"I hate this," he mutters to himself. Not being able to die has give him a strange new perspective on uncomfortable situations. He has yet to be killed by his own brain, but he doesn't imagine it would be much fun.

Faith doesn't pop up behind him, like some kind of forest fairy. Instead she makes him come to her, where she's swinging quietly on a swing-set, over-grown with hallucinogenic bullshit. Rook waits, waits for her to say something, to encourage, to convince, _something_. But there's just the swing, and the foggy silence of the Bliss.

When the pause has gone on too long, he cautiously sits down next to her. The swing's not really big enough, he's mostly hanging off the back of it.

"Faith," he says simply.

"Jacob says you're immortal," Faith says quietly, and her voice is soft but human. There's no reverberation, no weight to it, no musical choir in the background. No one grows any wings. "He says he tried to kill you and you wouldn't die. He says he tried so many times. He says we can't stop you, that you have a purpose and anyone who tries will fail."

She swings next to him, gently and half-heartedly, before she toes herself to a stop and looks at him. Her eyes are bigger than he remembers.

"Is it true, that you can't die?" she asks.

Rook looks up, but there's nothing in the sky but white mist and sparkles.

"I don't think so, not since I came to arrest Joseph." It's an admission he's made so many times he's lost track. 

Faith nods, as if she was waiting for that answer. As if the insanity of it doesn't surprise her at all. Rook supposes that's one advantage of talking to crazy people, they don't mind when nothing makes sense.

"The collapse is coming," she insists. "Joseph has seen it. I thought he was going to save us all. Everything he built, everything he told us, I was so certain. I gave everything he asked."

Her bare feet press into the grass, flowers immediately growing between her toes. Rook is distracted by them for longer than he should be.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do now," Faith admits. "Now that you're here as well. Joseph won't tell me."

"Maybe stop drugging people and making them your slaves," Rook says quietly. Because that's a good place to start. "I don't think the angels are going to be very helpful if everything goes to hell." Rook feels like he's saying that a lot lately 'if everything goes to hell,' 'if the world ends,' 'if everything collapses.' He'd like to blame it on the Seeds, or his own new, intimate relationship with death. But he can feel it in other people too. It's like his immortality has given Joseph's prophecies a legitimacy that they hadn't had before. He doesn't know how to feel about that, because sometimes it scares the shit out of him.

Faith looks up at him, there's a frown, an uncertainty that's new and fragile.

"Is that what you want?"

Rook did not start a cult.

"I'm trying not to tell people what to do," Rook says carefully. It's far more disturbing now that everyone seems to be listening. Because, honestly, he still has no idea what he's doing. He doesn't have a plan, no voices have ever talked to him, or told him to do anything. Not dying just happens to be something he's become really good at, for reasons still unknown. It's the question mark over Rook's entire life - over his many lives.

Faith looks disappointed.

"Joseph," Rook says, because he knows he has to confront him eventually. He's not going to stay away forever.

"He's shut himself in the church," Faith says carefully. "He's not in a good place. He thought you were special, but he thought you were going to be special for him. That you were going to join us, that you were going to come to him for guidance, to be reborn. He was Chosen and he had a plan. But now you've been Chosen too, and you're just tearing everything he's built down. You've made him doubt everything."

"I'm sorry," he says, even though he's pretty sure that he isn't, in fact, sorry about breaking all of Eden's Gate's things. It just seems like the right thing to say. He doesn't know if it's going to help. 

Faith laughs, and it's not the weird, breathy, distant laughter from before. It sounds so normal, a laugh anyone might give. 

"The world is going to end," she tells him. "It's going to end and you've been given a gift. I think you need to find out why."

And that's the one thing that Rook's been avoiding, isn't it? The one thing he hadn't really wanted to poke at too closely. The reason he can't die, which can't help but be the same reason so many people are trying to kill him. But it's not a thought that makes him happy.

"Who's going to tell me that?"

The answer to her seems to be obvious. And, yes, alright, it's not exactly a puzzle to him either.

"Please, don't hurt him," she says quietly.

"I didn't plan on it," Rook says, without really thinking about it. He's been trying not to kill anyone that didn't shoot at him first lately. Because your perspective on senseless death gets a little screwed when you're the only one who always survives a shootout. "I'll try," he says at last. Because Joseph Seed is unpredictable, he doesn't work like other people. Rook doesn't think there's any _fixing_ him, and he's not sure what else that leaves.

But Faith is smiling. She swings more vigorously, toes digging into the dirt.

Rook remembers something, something he probably should have remembered a lot sooner.

"Faith, I'm going to need Burke back." The man may be kind of a dick, who'd left him behind to die twice, back when Rook still thought he only had one life to lose. But he's still technically one of them, and he's still technically in enemy hands.

Faith frowns, like that might be a problem.

"I may have given him a little too much Bliss," she admits, then shrugs, as if that happens a lot. "He's not...altogether there any more. He talks to himself, even when I tell him not to."

Rook sighs. "Could you send him to the jail though, I'd appreciate it." They'd be able to take care of him there, probably. He wouldn't be the first angel they'd put in a cell.

She nods slowly.

"Will you push me?" Faith asks suddenly, out of nowhere. "It's been a long time since anyone pushed me on one of these." 

Rook blinks, and thinks of all the choices he's made, all of the people he could have been, the places he could have gone instead of here.

"Sure, why not," he says at last.

He stands up, circles behind her.

"Hold on," he tells her, and she obediently wraps her hands round the chains.

~

He wakes up feeling half-drunk next to the river.

There are two Peggies staring down at him, dishevelled and silent.

No.

Not Peggies.

They've ditched their magnolia sweaters and Eden's Gate paraphernalia. They could almost be ordinary townsfolk, if not for the crazy hair and weird intensity. If not for the...weird little wooden dolls that hang from their belts, dyed hands, little vibrating hearts, swaying gently in the breeze. 

"I'm not a prophet," Rook tells them.

They blink owlishly at him.

It occurs to him, belatedly, that's probably the sort of thing a prophet would say.

When he leaves, they follow him home.

~

Grace finds him later, eating a hotdog - Sharky had given it to him and he hadn't wanted to ask where it came from. It had smelled really good, and Rook had decided that was the only thing that mattered. Worst case scenario, it kills him and he doesn't eat another one.

"The Bliss fields are apparently on fire," Grace says, one eyebrow raised in suspicion. "You wouldn't happen to have had anything to do with that would you now?"

"Not directly," Rook says carefully. When really he should have known better. He should have just shrugged and admitted to nothing.

She continues to stare at him. She has a good stare, very accusing.

"I may have had a conversation with Faith," he says.

"Huh," Grace says.

Rook stops eating and looks at her. "Good huh, bad huh?"

"I'll let you know," she tells him.


	4. Chapter 4

Joey Hudson joins them all at the table when she gets to the pumpkin farm, she moves into the seat they've left open for her, opposite Rook. She seems surprised to be greeted so warmly by a collection of weirdos that she doesn't know. 

"Deputy Hudson." Nick slides her a beer, and she flails for a minute before catching it, frowning down at it. Her eyes still look bruised, and there's a reddened, sore place at the side of her mouth, like someone was too aggressive taking the tape off. She can't seem to stop looking at him. Rook's getting used to that look, people don't really mean anything by it.

"So, you're immortal?" she says, awkwardly. It sounds exactly as insane as it should, and she seems to realise as much, frowning helplessly. That's the problem with being impossible, even people that have seen him die bloody don't really want to believe it.

"He's immortal," Grace says testily. In her defence, she's been through this a lot since Rook met her. She's had a lot of time to judge him on things other than his immortality. Like the fact that he's a clumsy drunk, who's obsessed with zip-lines.

"Totally immortal," Nick agrees. "I have seen the proof of that myself, many, many times."

"Honest to God, the man cannot die," Sharky adds.

"Well, shit," Hudson says simply. "So, how the hell did that happen?"

Rook shrugs at her, which he knows is unhelpful, but it's the same answer he's had to give to everyone else.

"I honestly don't have an answer for you. I wish I did. It took me a while to even believe it." He kind of wishes he could say that sometimes he still doesn't, or that it feels like a dream, something comforting. But Rook has gone down hard too many times, felt the bruise echoes of it all, seen the blood left behind. It's just gone on too long now. He's the Deputy who can't die.

"He also started his own cult," Hurk tells her.

Hudson's eyebrows go up.

"I didn't start a cult," Rook growls at Hurk. "I didn't start a cult," he says again, in Hudson's direction this time. 

"But roughly forty percent of the Peggies may be following him as a prophet now," Grace adds. "Which he does not have the good sense to nip in the fucking bud. And the little dolls are creepy as shit."

How exactly is Rook supposed to stop a bunch of crazy, dishevelled people from making little wooden dolls in his name, and leaving baskets of food at the edge of the farm. It's not like he's encouraging them. He has not been encouraging the baskets of food. Honestly, he's just relieved that they're not baskets full of anything else.

"Little dolls?" Hudson says faintly. 

"It's a misunderstanding." Rook is going to keep saying that until someone believes it.

"I don't know, I kind of like them, I had crazy Stan - he was there when Jacob did a number on you - I had him make me one." Hurk pulls something out of his pocket and sets it on the table. 

"Of course you fucking did," Grace says.

"He attached the arm and legs with bits of string so they move around." Hurk tips the little wooden doll back and forth, and the arms and legs do indeed flop around. "I think it's to simulate Rook's limbs being all easily breakable like any other man's, but also totally indestructible at the same time." 

Rook glares at him. Hurk's answer is to waggle the doll in his direction, and he doesn't laugh, he fucking _doesn't_.

"Hey, no cult paraphernalia on the table when I'm eating," Nick complains.

"I...seem to have missed a lot," Hudson's looking around the table like she's not sure who to even start questioning.

"We'll catch you up no problem," Sharky offers. "Though, important point to start, do not shoot the bear or the cougar, they're both good."

"Cheeseburger is a goddamn sweetheart," Hurk corrects.

"So, Rook, man, are you ok and everything, after this morning?" Nick looks like he's been waiting for exactly the right moment to ask, and then when that moment hadn't presented itself, has decided to just leave it out there instead, during a conversational lull. 

Rook thinks everyone has been very carefully not mentioning what happened at the river this morning. But now everyone's looking at him, so it's clearly something that all of them have been wondering. Even Hudson stops drinking her beer and tries to look like she isn't also interested in the answer.

It's a silence filled with curiousity.

"I'm fine," he tells them, and he is, he's absolutely fine. There's not a single scratch on him. Even the tattoos John had insisted on giving him had faded. Which had actually answered a question it had never occurred to Rook to ask. He guesses he could get as many drunk tattoos as he likes with no regrets now. The only thing which remains bruised is probably his dignity.

"Well at least John's constant radios calls involve less ranting and threats now," Grace points out diplomatically, like she's trying to offer a silver lining to the obvious disaster that has become Rook's life.

"Yeah, now he sounds more like an ex that thinks there's a good chance you might work things out," Nick says. 

"Though that no touching below the waist rule, I'm pretty sure he broke that, at least twice." Hurk is now trying to clean beer off his little doll with a sleeve.

"I liked the part where he started crying, and didn't want to let you go," Sharky adds.

"Moving on," Rook says insistently, because he will drag everyone kicking and screaming away from that conversation if necessary. "Seriously, anything else."

Nick leans across the table towards him.

"Oh, Mary May wanted to let you know that The Cult of Little Dolls -"

"Not calling it that," Rook tells him firmly, ignoring the way Hurk has now posed the little doll of him so it looks like it's riding the mustard.

Nick flails briefly for another option. All of which Rook knows will be terrible.

"No," Rook says simply.

"The, er, 'Peggie defectors' have started trashing Eden's Gate property. It's mostly small stuff at the moment, but, let's be honest, it's just a matter of time."

Because of course they have, of course the cult is now fighting the cult. Because how could the county go three days without catching on fire, or exploding, or going to war at this point.

"I can't put it off any longer, I have to go to Joseph Seed." It's not a thought that makes him happy. But it's definitely time.

"Is that really the smartest thing to do," Grace asks. "He still has a ton of Peggies following him."

"What else are we going to do, just orbit each other while the county tears itself apart?"

"Joseph Seed thinks that God talks to him." Grace says it like Rook needs to be reminded. "He's fucking dangerous."

"What's he going to do, kill me?"

"I don't know what he's going to do, but he's a crazy person, and at least two members of his family seem to be all in on your mission from God."

"Can we stop naming things without consulting me," Rook says.

"That wasn't a name, that was just an observation," Grace points out.

Rook sighs, because it's getting harder and harder to pretend this is a series of unlikely coincidences. He thinks he's just going to have to accept that he needs to take his immortality and go hash it out with Joseph Seed.

"I'm just - I'm going to try and fix everything. I'm going to try and make sure as many people as possible make it out of this fucking mess alive," Rook promises. "No matter what it takes. If I can't do that with my stupid unflayable skin then what good am I?"

"We believe you, man, we believe _in_ you," Hurk says. "And I know that his partial nudity can be distracting. But do not let him get you into any bunkers, or convince you that you should marry him, or anything like that." 

"Will you stop with that shit, you're not helping," Nick says. Rook gets the impression Hurk has been having opinions on things when he wasn't around again. "Rook knows how to get stuff done without falling for any bullshit."

"Just make it back," Grace says simply. "Anything else we can deal with, like we always do." 

Rook doesn't deserve his stupid friends, he really fucking doesn't.

~

Rook takes the first truck he finds at the side of the road, and drives all the way to the Whitetail Park.

He's expecting some sort of resistance, there usually is, though granted there's been much less of it recently. But Joseph seems to have sent everyone away. The place is almost deserted. Rook walks all the way from the car to the church without seeing a single person.

He finds Joseph sitting in one of the pews. He looks like he's been waiting for a while. He's still half naked, a stretch of narrow and threatening purpose, but his hair has come free at the sides and back, ends curling in the heat. He's lost the restless, accusing mania he had the first time Rook met him, and that steel-tipped serenity that he'd had the second. This time Joseph Seed feels raw and open, like a man who'd been dragged through life so hard he left important parts of himself behind, making do with what's left. He looks like the one of them who's been leaving his blood all over the county.

Joseph doesn't stand when Rook reaches him, and it takes Rook a second to realise he doesn't intend to. Rook had spent a long time imagining this final meeting. He'd assumed it would involve more angry biblical monologues, accusation, and inevitable shooting. But then, that was an awful lot of deaths ago. That was before Joseph knew he couldn't kill him. But Rook had thought that he might try, that Joseph might try it over and over again, until even his fury burnt out. Rook had thought maybe that's what all the dying had been for.

But instead he's just still, watching Rook come to him.

"Have you come to put a bullet in me?" Joseph asks quietly. Rook can't read his expression, but it's tense and sharp. As if Joseph is in no way content to die a martyr, but sees no other alternative.

"No," Rook says simply. "I've come to talk to you. Are you going to listen now?" 

"All I have done is listen," Joseph tells him. "For answers, for guidance, for what I am supposed to do next. I did everything He asked of me. Everything I was told to do."

Joseph looks up at him, and it's a long look, as if he's trying to find something special about him. Some reason he's been allowed to continue this fight, over and over.

Rook sighs and very gently pushes at Joseph's shoulder. Joseph makes a noise of surprise, but moves along a little, until there's room for Rook to sit beside him. The length of his arm is hot where it's been in the sun.

Joseph seems content to let them sit in silence for a long handful of moments. It should be uncomfortable, considering what Joseph is, and what he's done. But this isn't even the strangest thing that's happened to Rook this week. When it comes all the way down to it, even with everyone Rook has met since he came here, they are both by far the least normal people in Hope County. They did both start a cult after all. Granted Rook's was more accidental, but he thinks he's still technically to blame.

"I thought you were sent to join me," Joseph says eventually. "But you resisted, wilfully and repeatedly, and I thought it was because you needed to discover your _truth_. I thought you would see, that you would come to me in time. You were Chosen as well, and I couldn't understand why you rejected your purpose. When it became clear you didn't know what your purpose was, I wondered why you did not come to me for guidance, for answers. But then you became something else, something destructive in my path, and I thought perhaps you were sent to test me instead, to test my conviction, my will. But there was no end to you. He made you one man, and a thousand men."

Joseph frowns at him, as if Rook is a problem he still doesn't entirely have the answer to.

"My family no longer has faith in me. I have lost my way, and I have been here, asking Him to tell me what I am supposed to do ever since."

Rook just sits beside him, thinking about everything for a long time, about whether it's even possible to talk this out with Joseph Seed, like they're both rational people. Or whether every conversation is just going to take them round and round in circles, always leading them back to Joseph's vision of the future, his Eden's Gate. Rook is not really a talker. He mostly just lets conversations happen around him. Joseph Seed took almost an entire county just by talking. It doesn't seem like a fair fight.

"I think the fact that I've been dying all over the county for the last few months and then coming back whole, means that maybe your vision of an apocalypse can't be immediately dismissed any more as the ravings of a religious lunatic."

Joseph turns his head and looks at him over his sunglasses. His eyes are no less intense beneath them, pale between the sunlight and the shade of the church. There's still something angry under there, shoring up whatever had led him to the church. But at this point Rook has been stabbed to death a few times, so he figures if Joseph wants to get it out of his system Rook's not even going to turn it into a brawl. He won't apologise though. Rook's not a fan of lying, even to spare people's feelings. 

But instead Joseph seems to forgive, as easily as he always does every time they've met.

"I understand what you think of me, and I even understand why. But you cannot imagine what I have done to reach this place, to have come this far on the path."

"I'm making a point," Rook tells him. "You're talking about things that people won't just instinctively believe. But nothing around here is anything close to normal any more. I'm pretty sure you haven't felt normal possibly ever. But we're both stuck here, we're both trying to save people, that's our _purpose_." Is that his purpose? Does he even know at this point? "God told you civilisation was going to collapse and you had to save as many people as you could, right?"

Joseph nods, that at least he still seems certain of. "He chose me to prepare for the collapse, to shepherd those who would listen to Eden's Gate."

"Right, Eden's Gate, the new world. You're the shepherd, trying to save their souls, and I'm trying to save the _rest_ of them. But the point I'm making, is that if everyone is dead then we've both completely fucking failed in our purpose. If everyone is dead before they make any choices, then no one is saved. So maybe you did get the message, but you're picturing the end of _everything_. That there'll be no survivors, except you and your followers. But then I show up and for some reason I can't die, nothing close to a true believer, and yet I keep _surviving_."

"You were sent to stop me," Joseph says, voice scratchy-thin, as if it's only just occurred to him. "Over and over again, if need be." 

"Until you listened," Rook guesses. "You don't exactly react well to being told that you're wrong. Well, I've died a few hundred times to get here." It might be more than that, Rook never started counting, so there was no place to stop. But it's probably more than that. It feels like more than that. He feels like some of his friends have been keeping count. He'll have to ask them. "So I'm guessing at this point you kind of have to listen to me."

Joseph says nothing. He has his eyes shut behind his glasses. 

"And I am," he says.

"You're not saving as many people as you can," Rook says simply. "You're just tearing the county into pieces. Your bunkers are full of kidnap victims, psychopaths and drug addicts. You're stealing the resources of whole communities and killing anyone who tries to protest. I know you're desperate, I know you think you're running out of time, but you're going about this with a holy book in one hand and a fucking scythe in the other. You're wrong, and I will come and stop you, and tell you the same thing as many times as it takes to save everyone, including you, and John, and Faith and even fucking Jacob as well. Because that's my job, that's what I'm here for, and I think we both know that."

All the air seems to go out of Joseph in one go, until he just looks thin and hollowed-out. He stares towards the front of the church, where the symbol of _his_ church is painted on the wall.

"I have only ever done what I thought He wanted of me," Joseph says flatly, shoulders drawing in, like a bullet might have been kinder. "I have done everything for Him. If I have failed the task that was given to me, then it is my fault. If I have walked the wrong path, denied His children salvation, followed by those who trusted me -."

Joseph's fingers curl against his thighs, drawing in like they can claw something out of himself. It's a movement that feels destructive. Which feels like a very bad place to leave him in for too long. Rook makes an abortive move to touch Joseph's hand, to stop the wave of angry despair that seems to be rolling over him. But it feels like a weirdly personal thing to do. 

Fuck it, Rook covers his fingers, spreads them back out and squeezes. 

"You built a foundation, you and your family," Rook says. Though it's a crazy, unstable one that half the county won't trust. That they might try and tear down no matter what. "And I think we have to join together, the town and The Gate, and yes, I'm aware that's going to be a _fucking shitshow_ of a thing to try and accomplish. But if something is going to happen, if you really are right - I don't fucking know, asteroids, solar flares, war, floods or even the fucking zombie apocalypse. Then we need everyone, and there needs to be something like a plan in place. Early warning system, direct routes to any and all bunkers in the county. Food supplies and such-like. Preparation and survival first, if you prove to them that you honestly want to save them, then maybe you can get them to listen." It's a big fucking maybe, he's not sure Joseph is going to be forgiven for even half of what he's done. 

Rook can't help but wonder if he sounds insane too at this point, if he sounds like one of those people that live in the mountains and won't talk to anyone from town, because they all apparently have receivers in their teeth. Dying might be easy compared to what he's suggesting here. 

"But you have to stop trying to make this the torture capital of the state. Half the town is not going to listen to you if you start spearing people's eyes out again. You're garbling the message with that shit. You didn't see Noah nailing anyone to the damn boat." Though Rook thinks he did get drunk and sleep with his own daughters, so he's probably not going to use him to win any more arguments.

Joseph is holding his hand now, and it's not a loose clasp of fingers, he's threaded their fingers together, a strange, unnecessary intimacy that Rook has been rendered almost incapable of pulling away from. He would protest more, but Rook thinks that he might be the only thing holding Joseph together, while his world view tips a few degrees. Rook's more invested than he would have expected in seeing if he survives it.

"I know I wasn't exactly helping either. I've been so distracted by the fact that I couldn't die. I barely even thought about _why_. And, granted, I didn't really want to know the why, because who the fuck wants to be Chosen, right?"

Joseph's fingers squeeze absently, and Rook listens to his next exhale shake out of him.

"So, I was just putting out fires as they happened, and everywhere I turned there was a Seed. Eventually I had to face the fact that it probably wasn't a coincidence."

Joseph seems pleased by that at least, though he probably shouldn't be. There's a difference between grudging acceptance and being all in for the ride. His meetings with Joseph's family haven't exactly left him unscathed.

"We have been put in each other's path, over and over, not understanding that we are supposed to be walking together," Joseph says, insistent, like he intends to make up for his mistake.

Which is...something, Rook supposes. 

Joseph leans towards him, making the pew creak ominously, and lays a warm hand on Rook's face. 

"We will save the world together, we will lead everyone to salvation." Joseph's eyes are very unsettling, looking up at him from a few inches away. The normal intensity level of him now has a flavour of quiet determination about it, which isn't quite as threatening as it was before. Though it is still a little unsettling, Joseph doesn't blink very often, it's a thing Rook has just noticed. 

Whatever he's looking for in Rook's face he seems to find, because Joseph smiles, and Rook's not sure he's ever seen that before.

"I understand now, that God always intended our union."

"Our what?" Rook says faintly.

Joseph's hand slides down his face, and there may be a fine line between naturally falling away and _caress_. But this is way over it. 

"You were given to me," Joseph manages to sound quietly pleased and slightly unhinged at the same time. "To keep me on the path, to cleave to me and give me strength. I was incomplete, I made mistakes. But now that I have you in my family, now the way is clear to me, we will save everyone."

That's...not exactly what Rook had meant when he was trying to get his point across. Though he wonders if he should have expected this, after everything he's been through. From that first meeting, where Joseph lifted his hands to be taken - to this one, where he's holding Rook's like he might never let go.

Of course Rook should have listened to Hurk, of all people. 

But there are a lot of people in the county, a lot of people that he's been dying for, repeatedly, just to fix this fucking mess. And Joseph Seed still has hundreds of men that would die for him too, not to mention Jacob's brainwashed fucking sleeper agents, and all the people on Bliss who've completely lost track of reality. Nothing with any of the Seeds has ever been easy, and this may be the best ending Rook is going to get for everyone. Especially if Joseph ends up being right after all.

"You know what, _sure_ ," Rook says quietly. "You and me, and we'll have the conversation about exactly how that's going to work later, after the world does or doesn't end."

Joseph starts to sing very softly, he doesn't let go of the death grip he has on Rook's hand, and he doesn't move away.

He seems content.

Rook has been blown up at least seventeen times. He can handle this.


End file.
